The present invention relates generally to music-piece-data display controlling apparatus and methods for displaying lyrics and chord names in accordance with tones reproduced on the basis of a selected set of music piece data, and more particularly to an improved music-piece-data display controlling apparatus and method which display lyrics, chord names and instrument-performance assisting information in accordance with progression of tones in an easy-to-read manner.
In some of the conventionally-known automatic performance apparatus such as electronic musical instruments and karaoke apparatus, background pictures (images) and lyrics of a user-selected music piece are displayed sequentially on a predetermined display screen as an automatic performance (i.e., reproduction) of a music piece proceeds on the basis of the music piece data. From Japanese Patent Laid-open Publication No. HEI-6-308991, for example, there has also been known an automatic performance apparatus which, for a user who wants to play a musical instrument to an automatically-performed music piece, displays, on the screen, not only lyrics of a predetermined performance section of the music piece but also chord names corresponding to the lyrics. Generally, these known automatic performance apparatus employ a music-piece-data display controlling apparatus, by which individual characters of the lyrics and chord namesxe2x80x94the terms xe2x80x9ccharacterxe2x80x9d as used herein in connection with lyrics refers to a character in the case of a song in mono-syllable language such as Japanese, or a unit word or phonetic unit in the case of a song in poly-syllable language such as English unless specified otherwisexe2x80x94, not to mention the background pictures, are sequentially changed in color in accordance with the progression of the automatically-performed music piece so that the user can play a desired musical instrument, such as a guitar or piano, to the automatically-performed music piece by operating the musical instrument in accordance with the sequentially-changing display color of the characters.
However, the conventionally-known music-piece-data display controlling apparatus are designed to change the display color of only the lyrics character or unit word corresponding to a current performance position (i.e., a position being currently performed) of the music piece. Thus, in a case where the chord progression and lyrics are displayed together and if a predetermined character string of the lyrics to be displayed can not be appropriately fit within a corresponding measure range of the displayed chord progression, the character of the lyrics for the current performance position of the music piece would be displayed too close to or in an overlapping relation to the character of the lyrics for a next performance position of the music piece, which thus tends to result in a hard-to-read, inappropriate display. Similar problem would occur to the displayed characters of the chord names. Particularly, for a character of the lyrics to be sung with a long vowel, two or more chords are sometimes to be displayed in corresponding relation to such a character of the lyrics. If, in such a case, the two or more chords are displayed simply in correspondence with the character to be sung with a long vowel, the chord names would be displayed in an overlapping condition and tend to be very hard to read on the screen. Namely, with the conventional music-piece-data display controlling apparatus, the individual characters of the lyrics are shown on a video display one after another simply at fixed uniform intervals as defined by the character font, and so each character of the lyrics can be displayed only within a predetermined limited width on the screen, with the result that a plurality of chords are sometimes displayed in an overlapping relation to each other.
Further, because only the lyrics and corresponding chord names are displayed on the screen for the user desiring to play the musical instrument to the performed music piece, the user can not know, from the display screen, individual timing for playing the instrument and individual pitches to be performed on the instrument, and thus the display provided via the conventional music-piece-data display controlling apparatus tends to be inconvenient and unsatisfactory.
It is therefore an object of the present invention to provide an improved music-piece-data display controlling method and apparatus which displays lyrics or chord progression on a predetermined display screen in an easy-to-read fashion. It is another object of the present invention to provide a music-piece-data display controlling method and apparatus which allow a user to readily perform a musical instrument manually to progression of an automatic performance of a music piece by displaying individual performance timing for playing the musical instrument and tone pitches to be performed on the musical instrument in accordance with a performance progression of a music piece.
In order to accomplish the above-mentioned object, the present invention provides a music piece data display method which comprises the steps of: causing a display device to display a character string of lyrics for a predetermined performance section of a music piece in accordance with progression of a performance of the music piece; and controlling, in accordance with the progression of the performance, display of the character string of lyrics on the display device in such a manner that a character or unit word of the lyrics corresponding to a current position in the progression of the performance and a character or unit word of the lyrics corresponding to a next position in the progression of the performance are displayed in different display styles. The character string of lyrics is liable to be displayed on the display device with some adjoining characters or unit words of the lyrics overlapping each other at least partly, and thus, the controlling step performs control such that the overlapping characters or unit words of the lyrics are displayed in different display styles so as to be visually distinguished from each other.
According to the present invention, the display of the character string of lyrics on the display device is controlled, in accordance with the progression of the performance, in such a manner that a character or unit word of the lyrics corresponding to the current position in the progression of the performance and a character or unit word of the lyrics corresponding to the next position in the progression of the performance are displayed in different display styles. Thus, in a situation where the character string of lyrics is liable to be displayed on the display device with some adjoining characters or unit words of the lyrics overlapping each other at least partly, the overlapping characters or unit words of the lyrics are controlled to be displayed in different display styles for visual distinction from each other. Namely, even when the characters or unit words of the lyrics corresponding to the current and next performance positions are displayed in an overlapping condition, the inventive arrangement of displaying the characters or units word of the lyrics corresponding to current and next positions in different display styles in accordance with the performance progression allows a user to readily distinguish between the overlapping characters or unit words. Namely, even in a situation where adjoining lyrics characters are displayed in succession with a partial overlap, the different display styles of the overlapping adjoining lyrics characters allows the user to readily distinguish between the overlapping adjoining lyrics characters and thereby provides a visual display that is very easy for the user to read.
The present invention also provides a music piece data display method which comprises the steps of: causing a display device to display accompaniment information for a predetermined performance section of a music piece in accordance with progression of a performance of the music piece; and controlling, in accordance with the progression of the performance, display of the accompaniment information on the display device in such a manner that a piece of the accompaniment information corresponding to a current position in the progression of the performance and a piece of the accompaniment information corresponding to a next position in the progression of the performance are displayed in different display styles. This way, even when pieces of the accompaniment information corresponding to the current and next performance positions are displayed in an overlapping condition, i.e. even in a situation where adjoining pieces of the accompaniment information are displayed in succession with a partial overlap, the different display styles allows the user to readily distinguish between the overlapping adjoining pieces of the accompaniment information. Thus, even when characters representing the adjoining pieces of the accompaniment information are displayed in an overlapping condition, the different display styles allows the user to readily distinguish between the overlapping characters and thereby provides a visual display that is very easy for the user to read.
The present invention also provides a music piece data display method which comprises the steps of: causing a display device to display a character string of lyrics and accompaniment information for a predetermined performance section of a music piece in accordance with progression of a performance of the music piece; controlling, in accordance with the progression of the performance, display of the character string of lyrics on the display device in such a manner that a character or unit word of the lyrics corresponding to a current position in the progression of the performance and a character or unit word of the lyrics corresponding to a next position in the progression of the performance are displayed in different display styles; and controlling, in accordance with the progression of the performance, display of the accompaniment information on the display device in such a manner that a piece of the accompaniment information corresponding to the current position in the progression of the performance and a piece of the accompaniment information corresponding to the next position in the progression of the performance are displayed in different display styles.
By thus displaying, in the different display styles, the lyrics characters and pieces of the accompaniment information corresponding to the current and next positions when displaying the lyrics characters and accompaniment information in accordance with the performance progression, the user is allowed to distinguish between the displays corresponding to the current and next positions even when they are displayed with a partial overlap. Further, because the accompaniment information is displayed near the display of the lyrics with the display style varied in accordance with the performance progression, the user is allowed to readily enjoy performing the accompaniment while viewing the displayed lyrics.
The present invention also provides a music piece data display method which comprises the steps of: causing a display device to display a character string of lyrics for a predetermined performance section of a music piece in accordance with progression of a performance of the music piece; controlling, in accordance with the progression of the performance, display of the character string of lyrics on the display device in such a manner that a character or unit word of the lyrics corresponding to a current position in the progression of the performance and a character or unit word of the lyrics corresponding to a next position in the progression of the performance are displayed in different display styles; and displaying accompaniment information near the character string of lyrics displayed on the display device, in accordance with the progression of the performance.
The present invention provides a music piece data display method which comprises the steps of: causing a display device to display a character string of lyrics for a predetermined performance section of a music piece in accordance with progression of a performance of the music piece; and displaying chord information in accordance with the progression of the performance and in corresponding relation to the character string of lyrics displayed on the display device, the step of displaying chord information determining respective positions of pieces of the chord information, to be displayed in succession, such that displays of the pieces of the chord information do not overlap each other. Intervals between characters or unit words in the character string of lyrics, to be displayed on the display device by the step of causing, can be varied to become non-uniform, depending on the positions of the pieces of the chord information displayed by the step of displaying chord information. For example, in a situation where a plurality of pieces of chord information are to be displayed in succession between lyrics characters and they are likely to be displayed in an overlapping condition, the present invention displays the lyrics characters with the interval therebetween increased appropriately depending taking into account the positions of the pieces of the chord information. With the thus-increased interval between the lyrics characters, two or more pieces of the chord information, to be displayed in succession between the lyrics characters, can be displayed with no overlap therebetween.
The present invention further provides a music piece data display method which comprises the steps of: causing a display device to display a character string of lyrics for a predetermined performance section of a music piece in accordance with progression of a performance of the music piece; displaying accompaniment information near the character string of lyrics displayed on the display device, in accordance with the progression of the performance; and displaying information indicative of performance timing of the accompaniment information, in corresponding relation to display of the accompaniment information by the step of displaying accompaniment information. With this arrangement, the user or human player can make a performance operation corresponding to the accompaniment information (e.g., chord information) to the displayed performance timing and thereby can enjoy an accompaniment ensemble in accordance with the progression of the music piece performance.
The accompaniment information is typically in the form of chord information, in which case the detecting step detects performance timing of a predetermined performance part on the basis of performance data of the predetermined performance part other than chord data and the performance timing of the predetermined performance part detected by the step of detecting is displayed in corresponding relation to the accompaniment information. With this arrangement, the human player can perform a chord accompaniment without monotonousness and can even further enjoy an accompaniment ensemble in accordance with the progression of the music piece performance.
Further, the present invention provides a music piece data display method which comprises the steps of: displaying lyrics in accordance with progression of a performance of a music piece, and creating data of a display screen that displays, in corresponding relation to display of the lyrics, accompaniment information matching with the progression of the performance. In this case, a plurality of the display screens can be created which differ from each other at least in time-axial display scale. The music piece data display method further comprises a step of selecting one of the display screens and causing the display device to display the selected display screen. Because there can be created a plurality of the display screens of different time-axial display scales and any one of the display screens having an optimum display scale, the present invention can always provide a very efficient music piece data display.
The present invention also provides a music piece data display method which comprises the steps of: displaying, by chord names, a chord progression for a predetermined performance section of a music piece in accordance with progression of a performance of the music piece; and simultaneously displaying component tones of a chord corresponding to a current position in the chord progression and component tones of a chord corresponding to a next position in the chord progression in different display styles visually distinguishing therebetween. By the chord name display, a chord progression throughout the predetermined performance section (e.g., several measures) can be readily known. Also, because chord component tones to be performed at the current position and chord component tones to be performed at the next position are displayed in detail in separate distinguishable styles, the present invention can provide a user-friendly performance guide that is very easy even for a sheer beginner to read.
The present invention also provides a music piece data display method which comprises the steps of: identifying an available pitch range of a keyboard to be used for a performance of a music piece; and displaying component tones of a chord to be currently performed in accordance with a chord progression of the performance, the step of displaying being capable of displaying chord component tones in a turn-back fashion such that any chord component tones can be displayed within the available pitch range of the keyboard identified by the step of identifying. Even where the keyboard has an available pitch range of just one octave, any designated chord component tones beyond the keyboard pitch range are displayed in a turn-back fashion (with an octave shift) as appropriate. Thus, the present invention can provide a proper chord performance guide.
Further, the present invention provides a music piece data display method which comprises the steps of: causing a display device to display lyrics for a predetermined performance section of a music piece and chord names corresponding to a chord progression in the predetermined performance section, in accordance with progression of the performance; and making a display indicating, on a diagram simulating a keyboard, component tones of at least a chord corresponding to a current position in the chord progression. By the display of the lyrics and chord names, lyrics and chord progression throughout the predetermined performance section (e.g., several measures) can be readily known. Also, because at least chord component tones to be performed at the current position are displayed in detail in separate distinguishable styles, the present invention can provide a user-friendly performance guide that is very easy even for a sheer beginner to read and manipulate.
The present invention may be constructed and practiced not only as the method invention but also as a music-piece-data display controlling apparatus. The present invention may also be practiced as a program for execution by a processor such as a computer or DSP., as well as a recording medium storing such a program. The processor may be a dedicated processor having incorporated therein dedicated logic in hardware, not to mention a general-purpose processor such as a computer executing a desired software program.